Who has not yet awoken to the fact that we have
been sailing since the 9/11 attacks into a perfect storm? Here are just
some of the turbulent winds blowing and pushing officials in the wrong
direction:

--Politicians who constantly stoke the fear
of terrorism while forcing underling officials to promise they can
protect the public by "pre-empting" all threats (hyped and un-hyped);

--The erosion of the prior legal safeguards, including even the firmly engrained ethical and legal principles of jus cogens, i.e., internationally accepted legal standards like repudiation of torture and aggressive war;

--A "green light" on mentality prompted by
the broad legal authority given to the executive by Congress enacting
such laws as the Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act, but also
warrantless monitoring and offshore, indefinite detentions, authorities
abrogated by the White House under theories of unlimited presidential
war powers;

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--Perverse, counterproductive job and
profit incentives for the 854,000 agents, analysts, operatives, and
private contractors/consultants who have been set to work in the new
"Top Secret America" surveillance-security complex;

--Lack of any effective, independent
oversight (despite the 9/11 Commission's prescient and serious concerns
enumerated years ago, and the creation of a Privacy and Civil
Liberties Oversight Board in 2004);

--The political need for war presidencies
to maintain momentum in the face of popular disapproval of the United
States' nearly decade-long, ongoing wars and occupations in the
Mideast.

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Such systemic forces will always produce a bad result.

Even the rather conservative Washington
Post is quite worried about what's likely to result in this clearly
out-of-control pressure cooker they called "Top Secret America." If it
cannot be quickly reined in, we are almost certain to suffer replays of
the worst of examples of Cold War McCarthyism and Vietnam COINTELPRO
abuses.

That prediction is based on what has
happened before when the militaristic forces of war got turned inward
on U.S. citizens. Even if government officials are otherwise well
intentioned, these forces will increase the chances for error and
opportunism.

Some would say we've entered this perfect
storm already, given the numerous examples of improper targeting of
various domestic advocacy groups coming to light, most recently the FBI
searches and seizures of various anti-war activists' offices and homes
in Minneapolis and Chicago.

Let's not forget how the "war on terror" was originally sold to the American public as "we fight them over there
so we don't have to fight them here." But now the "war on terror" is
increasingly being turned inward on "homegrown" American citizens.

FBI agents are motivated, for instance,
to try to check off "statistical achievements" by sending well-paid,
manipulative confidential informants into mosques and apparently also into various advocacy and anti-war groups.

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Even in the Iowa heartland, FBI
surveillances, trash searches, terrorism database paperwork and
statistical accomplishments for disseminating information back and
forth about a few student protesters in Iowa City before the 2008
Republican National Convention filled hundreds of file pages without
ever providing or demonstrating the slightest justification or
suspicion.

Relatively simple ways to address and
reduce each of these counter-productive forces, which followed the 9/11
attacks, do exist, however. If these remedies are applied, we
shouldn't have to endure the worst civil-liberties abuses that have
historically fallen upon common citizens merely attempting to avail
themselves of their constitutional right to dissent.

These remedies also would not sacrifice
our collective security but actually could and would greatly enhance
it. The list below outlines the most serious current civil-liberties
problems and the potential fixes.